JAWS 50th on the Production Line at Stern Pinball; Is Chuck E Cheese Financial Trouble; Would Stern Make a TRON Aries Pin?; Game of the Day
By knapparcade
Happy Friday everyone! You know what that means, we get a sneak peek at what is on the production line at Stern Pinball. Not surprisingly, Stern is currently manufacturing its newest game JAWS 50th Anniversary. We will continue to see the usual suspects on the line at Stern until it's mysterious hole in its production schedule in Mid-August when we will likely see one of its rumored upcoming titles, a John Borg Star Wars related Cornerstone game or The Walking Dead Remastered.Your browser doesn't support HTML5 video. Download the video instead.
There's been a surprising amount of media coverage lately about an arcade franchise that was super popular in my youth, good old Chuck E Cheese. The Company has begun opening new "Chuck's Arcade" locations at malls across the country. As of the beginning of July, CEC had opened ten Chuck's Places. Unfortunately, according to a recent report by Bloomberg things may not be all Hunky Dory for Chuck. It's owner, CEC Entertainment, recently was unable to raise cash in the junk-bond market and has been in talks with its current equity investors about how it will handle its upcoming debt payments. The report states that CEC needs $600 million. Wow, that's a lot of Cheddar (sorry, I had to lol). I have not been to any of the new locations yet, but as someone who has memories of going to Chuck E Cheese and Showbiz Pizza Place as a kid and who hosted birthday parties for my two boys when they were little at the Chuck E Cheese in town, I'm rooting for them to survive. The more arcades, the better. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-15/chuck-e-cheese-owner-talks-equity-deal-after-failed-junk-bond https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/07/03/chucks-arcade-chuck-e-cheese-locations/84458734007/
For what seems like years, there has been a rumor floating around out there that Stern Pinball is going to release a Vault game based on its popular 2011 pinball machine TRON. I've even heard from people that the TRON Vault is all but done, but I don't know how true those stories are. I really started to doubt that a TRON Vault is coming after hearing an interview with Stern Pinball's designer Keith Elwin at the recent Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show. During the Q&A session, someone asked if we will ever see Stern's TRON Legacy pin remade. Elwin seemed to hint that if we do get a new TRON machine it may be based on the newest movie because that’s the part of the franchise that companies like to push. Specifically, he said: “I will tell you that dealing with licensors, if they have a license with many different movies, they’re always going to push the latest movie. I would love to do a TRON 1 myself, but they’re going to be like ‘No, TRON 3 is coming out, you gotta do this one. Not that this is happening, but that’s usually how the licensing world works.” If Stern does remake its 2011 game, to me it sounds to me as though it would be rebranded as Disney's new upcoming TRON: Ares film. Yesterday, Disney released a trailer for TRON Ares, which is due to hit theatres on October 10th. What do you think about the trailer? Do you think that the new movie would work as a pinball machine? A remake of Stern's TRON seems like a no-brainer to me, but for some reason I'm not sure if it is going to actually happen.
The newspaper, San Francisco Examiner, just published a cool story on the iconic Free Gold Watch print shop / arcade. It's a great read. Rather than sharing pictures of the arcade from the article, like I often do I decided to share my pictures of Free Gold Watch from all the way back in 2019 (yes I've been taking arcade pictures for that long lol). Waller Street screen-printing shop doubles as SF pinball destination https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/the-city/free-gold-watch-doubles-as-premier-sf-pinball-destination/article_23efeb87-64ac-4758-b0d1-6bec0a2bac4f.html
There's me...with a lot less gray Haha
Game of the Day 1990 Williams Whirlwind 🌪️ pinball machine. 7,304 units produced. Designed by Pat Lawlor with art by John Youssi. Whirlwind has one of the greatest toppers of all time, with a fan that actually blows wind in the player’s face at points in the game. As seen at the Delaware Pinball Collective.
